* Update: Since posting this article I've spoken to the CEO of Walker Sands, who apologized and completely takes the responsibility and bad rap for this, and consequently has no hard feelings for the approach CrackBerry took on posting this (it's 2011 and we're living in a social media world). He's given me his assurance that the intent here was not a smear campaign against RIM, but rather that they wanted to get the message out there that RIM needs to work harder so that BlackBerry users can get access to the apps we want. That stated, he also admitted they executed very poorly (they won't be pitching any inflammatory email subject lines in the future) and that their timing of this campaign was extremely unlucky, which only made matters worse. *

We all know Research In Motion and BlackBerry have been picking up more than their fair share of negative press the past few months. Part of this is understandable, as RIM has provided the media with the material upon which to write those stories (share price down, still waiting for new BBs, etc. I don't need to re-hash that stuff again here).

But there's a big difference between media reporting news that happens to be negative and companies reaching out to you to in order to push a hatchet job. Suffice to say, I was shocked when I recently received the following email that had the subject line of STORY IDEA: The Death of Blackberry.

------------------------------------
From: Robert Chilver
Subject: STORY IDEA: The Death of Blackberry
To: kevin@crackberry.com

Hi Editor,

Would you be interested in a story on how and why the blackberry is falling behind other smart phone platforms?

Because of its challenging development environment, along with several other factors, Blackberry's mobile capabilities fall well short of the competition. Developers are beginning to ignore the Blackberry platform altogether, leading to a severely lacking app market. Users are taking notice and it's very likely Blackberry's best days are far behind it.

Adage Technologies, a web and application development firm, would be happy to speak with you or offer a contributed article on why the Blackberry is falling behind and if there is any way it can compete with juggernauts like the Android or iPhone platforms. Please let me know if you would be interested in hearing more and we can go from there. Thanks.

Robert Chilver
robert.chilver@walkersands.com

I find this kind of an email and story pitch to be really, really messed up. Walker Sands is a PR company and Adage Technologies is a web dev/app dev house. I'm pretty sure this is just a case of Adage trying to get some publicity for their company, but seriously, it almost makes you wonder if there's some other sort of force out there trying to ramp up the BlackBerry hateration in the media. Seems crazy I know, but it wasn't so long ago that Facebook was caught hiring a PR firm to smear Google.

I'd rather see companies quit doing this kind of crap asap and definitely don't want to receive another email like this, so feel free to do your thing CrackBerry Nation. I already let Robert Chilver know he spelled BlackBerry wrong (2 capital B's dude) and was going to send Adage an email letting them know they should think up some better PR tactics. Sending the biggest BlackBerry website an interview request with a subject of The Death of BlackBerry ranks 11 out of 10 on the you're on crack scale.

My friend is a real nut. Compare him to the pig farmer, and you would think that the pig farmer was a pretty good guy.

He is going to put the number 312-267-0066 on his works auto dialer. They will be receiving a call every 6 seconds until the line is disconnected. It may take 4 or 5 months, but they always change their number.

BTW - Kevin. You knew about this 2 weeks ago, and didn't tell us? What is YOUR phone number?

1 - Apple is American
2 - Google is American
3 - Both companies pay taxes to the US government
4 - US government uses that money to buy bombs made in America
5 - America takes those bombs, and drops them on you, your family and your friends

6 - RIM is a Canadian company
7 - Canadians don't even know what bombs look like
8 - Buy BlackBerrys ... save your life !!

Seriously this letter is off sides but facts are still facts, it's game over for Blackberry ! RIM is way behind ! Catchup is not going to happen, the playbook a cheap WebOS rip off and under speced ! I hate to say it but even WebOS is in trouble, they have the UI and big $$$ now but iOS is too far ahead of the consumer mindset, with Andriod following at the correct pace.

Don't get me wrong here I own a BB as my daily device and it works great but RIM have missed the boat and train....

USA is one case - the world goes beyond our borders and RIM does very well worldwide - it might suck for RIM in a way, but keep in mind most of these people jumping ship are those who have been "stuck" with an older BB phone for too long, looking at their friends upgrade to iPhones and Androids gets to them and they feel upset and create the "excuse".

It's a great thing that we (the people) have so many options to choose from so like i said, go ahead do what you have to do to feel better.

In the end, the Hype will go away, you will go back to needing a phone that WORKS best for you, not because of a gazillion useless/repeated apps you will probably use a couple of times and then loose them in a folder.

This is my personal experience. I owned an iPhone, currently own an iPad2 & Ipod touch 3g - but also a BB Torch, and a 64GB Wifi Playbook.

My experience is quite the opposite of yours. I owned a torch then I hear that all of the in-store phones currently out, will not get a taste of os7. Are you going to buy one of those new devices when they come out(leaving the torch that you got last year)? And as well reading the comments on the article Kevin posted yesterday I see most people want MORE apps.

so i see people complaining RIM is too far behind and can't keep up with technology. And other people complaining that their old phone won't work with an OS designed for a much more powerful phone... can't please everyone i guess..

I wouldn't count RIM out. Apple was near extinction not that many years ago. Motorola and HTC almost sunk themselves as well. All 3 of these companies have made comebacks. This is the tech world. Look how far Android has come in the last 2 years taking the #1 spot. 2 years ago hardly anyone heard of android. RIM does have a lot of work to do. They need a hit phone and a good OS. They also need apps but as with the 3 examples above all these companies have made comebacks. Or maybe Google purchases them and integrates BB with Android.

I am going to leave BB after 7 or 8 years as a faithful follower, but I won't say I won't be back or they are dead.

This is a classic case of some unknown or some forgotten trying to get their foot in the door at someone else expense. Well I hope that Robert Chilver is ready for the response from the CrackBerry nation. The Rimpire Strikes Back, with tact, class and sophistication.

@Marc_Paradise these so-called knowledgeable tech experts are out to tarnish RIM and everything RIM related, including BlackBerry users. They are the ones that took this issue to the trenches with all the slander they're blogging about. So me doing my part in the defense of something I believe in, even if RIM won't even know what I did, is satisfying. I army crawled into my office and did a ninja tumble onto my chair (tact), while wearing a shirt and tie (class), didn't use any foul/crass language (sophistication), and expressed my opinion about the whole matter. I'm done with people thinking that iOS/Android are the Mecca of technology cos of the variety of the same apps available in their apps stores that will emulate farting, etc. So either you sit there and hide under a rock, or you voice your opinion on what you know to be truthful.

Marc I get what you're saying, but if enough of us start making little waves, those will generate into a giant wave which will hopefully wash out those that are paying for the negative press. This dude is just in an unfortunate position and trust me when I say I feel for him for doing his job. The CrackBerry nation has enough resources that at some point we will move onto the bigger fish, but we have to start somewhere.

Doesn't surprise me one bit. The sheer volume of negative press suggests something is afoot. RIM DOES have some issues to work out, but the tidal wave of negative press stories all foretelling of the death of RIM is just ridiculous.

For example, reading all the negative stories about the playbook, it's obvious to me that the authors of those articles haven't spent more than 5 minutes with the product in question (they're talking out of their asses!). If they had Playbooks, they would be talking about the exceptional build quality, how impressive the UI and multi-tasking are, and the HUGE and OBVIOUS potential in BB's new operating system. It IS lacking in email, calendar, apps and some other areas, but the potential is HUGE and undeniable, and what IS there already is quite good. The apps will come, the developer support will come, one just need be patient. This is a huge shift RIM is making and it will have its share of hiccups. So long as no rival successfully sabotages them, RIM will do very well in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if some are worried, and are encouraging this negative coverage.

The phones are taking too long to get out. But it appears the wait is almost over. RIM has dithered about and wasted way too much time, and they're reaping the whirlwind right now. But the bold touch is looking REALLY exciting, and when I think about getting THAT and pairing it with my Playbook, it gets me all .... well you know.

I had a BB curve 8330 - refuse to support iCrap - went to the HTC Evo, F that - going back to BB, got my PB and waiting for the Bold Touch.

There ARE some impressive apps on the PB, but it is sorely missing some big names. Hopefully, by year's end things will be looking up. IF the apps don't come, QNX is dead. Once RIM gets the QNX phones out, development should pick up. That's assuming people don't buy into the hype and get brainwashed into believing RIM is dead.

Crackberry, I say follow the money. See who is paying these people to promote this negative press. Follow the money.

What do I think? This is just conjecture on my part, but I've seen this in my line of work before. I think SOMEBODY is trying to knock down the share price so they can BUY RIM. Period. (I don't WANT RIM to get swallowed up, but unfortunately for me, it doesn't matter what I want.) Just conjecture - but somebody wants RIM, and they want to knock down the price before they buy. I'd HATE to see that. Disgusting really to think of it. Just disgusting. :/

That is not too far off the mark. Negative press from a P.R. firm. Just smells of knocking down the share price of RIM even further...can you say hostile take-over?

As for Playbook, I have not tried it yet, however, I have read the military is looking at these devices. That's a pretty big sale for RIM, don't you think? Wasn't there just an article posted to Crackberry today about the PB winning a design award?

When it comes to enterprise security, RIM cannot be matched. RIM was banned in a country (can't recall which one) for being too secure! Too secure? That is only a bad thing if you want to spy on your people. Our own President carries a BB and many celebs have one too. Those who know, go with BB.

How many of the apps for iPhone and Android are even all that useful? I see new apps hitting BB APP World all the time. Some are junk, yet many are very useful. Yes, it is true, everywhere you go, the mall, church, magazines there is some new iphone or Android app. RIM is opening up their architecture dramatically and developers will jump on board. May even be incorporating Android apps.

Let's talk about accessing information.
Keyboard shortcuts (i.e., a = Contacts, l = calendar, t = tasks, d = notepad, s = search, etc.) very useful. Add to this a third party app like quick launch where you can organize apps into folders and sub folders in a convenient list (think P.C.) - access apps from wherever you are in the BB, and you have some really fast access to information. Quite frankly, the Android and iphone platform with all the sliding screens to get to what you need drive me nuts. And how about a physical phone button to call and end button to end the call? Only BB kids. I am multitasking all the time and can quickly toggle from a call to whatever app, initiate and end a call from wherever. What about my convenience keys? Even better acces. What about quick hibernate and mute buttons at the top. Mute and volume - like having an MP3 player with quick access.

Oh, did I say multi-tasking. Android is about the closest. App switching iOS is not it folks.
Example: I am driving...have AT&T Navigator speaking out directions at its own volume level, while I have Pandora streaming in the background at its own volume level. Each app is running independently. Phone call comes in, both volumes go to mute and then resume after the call is ended. And don't tell anyone but I am probably looking at a text, email, etc. (BB is in the dash mount cradle, so a little safer). Quickly toggling apps with the app switcher. Another example: Going for a run, have Pandora Streaming music, exercise program (pick one - MiCoach, Edimondo, etc.) tracking my GPS and speaking my progress in the background while listening to some great tunes. Could have Google maps going too if I want or whatever.

So what exactly does an Android or iphone do that my BB can't? Something worthwhile please?

Half the time people who complain about BB have an old out dated one. Or if they have a newer one they don't know what it can do. RIM could do a better job promoting the capabilities because they are REALLY Good. And with the next Gen phones, they are going to be awesome! The only thing that is holding back RIM right now is the hardware and memory. That is a ship they should have got on a while ago, but then again, the OS is so tight even with slower processors the phones still jam!

Lastly, the global market is huge for RIM. Tons of BB's abroad, iphone next and few Androids. That's what my BBM chums tell me from other countries.

The article got me fired up...just a little.
Singing to the choir I hope. :)

It was obvious that people want to bring RIM down because they are a threat to the game for the future. There was way to much negative press about RIM in the last few months. It was like a perfectly planned attack against them. Trust me when I tell you that people and evil players in any industry do this all the time so they can look like they are on top and stay on top. If you it doesn't happen I hope this opens up all of your eyes. RIM is nowhere near dead! I LOVE MY BB BOLD 9650!!! They are taking the right steps and even admitted some wrong moves.. Big deal. They are correcting them now.. So why all the negativity still??!

Its funny that a mobile platform like rim who offer so many benefits are being ruined by their party devs not joining the party. 5 years ago was such a different story. Mobile companies didn't rely on apps to survive but on their services. Times have indeed changed and now fart apps quantities are strangling rim or is that the lack of?

For my needs rim does very nicely. I enjoy the os and I feel qnx does a nice job to balance it on the playbook. Its just a shame there's an image rim isn't profutable to devs.

Certainly RIMM has given people an opening but they have been punished far beyond what is reasonable.
The fact is that Apple, Google, Microsoft and others are happy to take shots at RIMM because it is still huge. Carving out market share would make anyone drool. So the dollars are behind this view.
I read a "news" article about the Playbook being the Herpes of tablets. Honestly, that kind of crap is getting potential clients to shy away, just in case. I have a Playbook and I know the specs vs the iPad1 and 2 and it beats both of them. Better hardware by far. Faster processor, better cameras, better dual stereo speakers, great UI, etc.
Everyone I have show it to is amazed and if they don't already have a tablet is seriously considering it.
However, this is in RIMM's court now. They need to execute on the 9900 and other new phones and continue to upgrade the playbook with the android player, etc. Everyone kicks you when you are down but RIMM can get back up. Honestly, I have used other phones and my only choice today is a BlackBerry. Go RIMM.

it's irresponsible to create distractionary articles to 'rally the troops' when the ship is clearly going down, why watch the band play when you can look for a boat. these sort of articles seem more like trying to assure page hits don't leave this site. if RIM makes a product worth cheering about i'll cheer them on, sure the playbook has potential, but it won't ever be realized. webOS is better than everything out there, but it wasn't implemented properly, and has pretty much failed. potential doesn't mean anything, it's companies jobs to make sure their product hits the market with a chance of success, releasing the playbook without email capabilities killed it before it could ever shine. i love the playbook for what it can do, i hate it for what it does do, nothing. RIM had a shot here to generate growth from outside of their marketshare but crippled the device's functionality to close to 0 if you don't own a blackberry phone. waging a war against the media is merely a last ditch effort from the inevitable coming posts of 'we're shutting the site down'

Playbook sold more than any Android tablet. So I guess we can draw the conclusion that Android is improperly implemented or lacking necessary features and that's why every android tablet that has come out and will ever come out is dead.

While we're spouting out a bunch of nonsense Android infringes on an insane amount of Oracle IP. After Google pays the 6.1 billion in damages Android will cease to exist because the manufacturers will not be able to pay the enormous licensing fees required. That will just leave RIM and Apple.

lol so now a platform that will have 50% marketshare by the end of the year will suddenly cease to exist? that isn't going to happen my friend, sorry, also how do you know how many playbooks sold? nobody knows, they only said they shipped 500k, so even if they sold all 500k of those that still wouldn't match the fact that samsung told 2 million galaxy tabs in 3 months http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/samsung-sells-2-million-galaxy-tab...

that oracle lawsuit is nonsense too with every indication that it will be dismissed or dropped, oracle has nothing to gain here and most of their claims have been considered to be nonsense. oracle will get nothing from all of this, unless of course they stop trying to sue google, who is clearly the front runner for them to push java to mobile platforms. shutting android down would be the worst possible thing oracle could do for themselves. read up before you try to converse about things you don't know anything about.

5. Did it hurt when your mom dropped you?
4. Is this the 3rd or 4th time you're trying to get your GED?
3. Hey, you mind if I borrow that time machine you have?
2. Was it cool growing up with Miss Cleo as a mom and John Edward as a dad?
1. God I hope you're cute...cause you're really stupid.

I've always thought that, me being as awesome as I am, should have a TV show. After reading you two banter back and forth on 2 different blogs it is way more clear that you guys deserve some sort of talk show/ TV show gig. You guys have made my work day a joy. So thank you Katiepea and Slant! On a side note, Katiepea, your an idiot. Not because I'm a fanboy but because all of your aurguments have no weight behind them.

Hello, I'm Mike Santoro, President of Walker Sands. You can direct your hatred this way.

This pitch was sent on June 20th which turned out to be a very unfortunate day for BlackBerry. Let me assure you that this isn't some sort of smear campaign against BlackBerry. Nor was it an attempt to pile on to what has been a rough period of time for BlackBerry.

It was a pitch designed to open up a discussion that the development challenges posed by BlackBerry make it a very difficult environment for companies who want to roll out apps. We've heard that from Adage, who develops mobile and web apps, and we've heard it from many of our other tech focused clients.

As of March 2011 there were 350k iOS apps, 250k Android, and 20k BlackBerry. I think few people would dispute that, despite being a leader in many other areas, RIM has fallen behind the competition when it comes to apps.

There's a reason for this and that was the only reason we wanted to share this with Crackberry.

In hindsight this wasn't 100% clear that this is what we were looking to share and it was a really poorly timed email to boot.

It's clear that you guys love your BlackBerries and I think you should continue to defend them. There's a ton to love about them. If you want to spam Mr. Chilver, that's totally your call. Just know that no one was trying to pile onto RIM's recent misfortunes. Rather we were trying to point out one of the reasons they are struggling and what they might do about that.

Totally agree. It's a dirty PR tactic to use a provocative subject line to get a writer to open an email. In this case it was way too provocative and considering what had just happened on the 20th in poor taste.

You see that's the problem. People judge apps by numbers, not quality. What difference does 13,000 "to-do" list apps on iOS or Andrioid over 10 quality ones on BBOS make? I'll take quality over quantity anyday.

The argument always goes to, "there are 100s of thousands of apps for iOS". That's great, and iOS definitely has more to offer than the BBOS in apps, but again, I'd say about 10% of the apps in the "App Store" are useful. It's just a terrible metric.

You're trying to brag about app numbers. So wheres your tablet apps? Developers aren't making any money on Android because of the fragmentation and hardware differences. So no one wants to create apps for the tablets. You wanna come around here and spout off about PlayBook missing apps etc. Well take off your robot goggles because you don't have any tablet apps barely.

i wasn't doing any bragging, i was simply stating that numbers of apps and a wide selection do matter. that isn't bragging it's simple fact of the more choices you have the more likely there is to be what you want. this discussion wasn't even regarding android until you flopped it in there and started attacking me. i don't even own an android tablet. if you insist we compare, i stated playbook was missing email functionality, which all android tablets DO have. i think most people would agree this is for sure possibly the #1 thing the playbook should have but doesn't. there are plenty of articles from developers talking about how their apps make more money in the android market than the app store, so once again it appears everything you've said is incorrect. the android market is quite lucrative for developers. so much so in fact that the developers of words with friends and angry birds offer their apps for free on android because they make more money doing that than charging for it in the app store. feel free to google those numbers. zynga and rovio both state they generate more revenue from android than ios

Ahhhh yes katiepea's famous small sample set arguments. Duuuuhhhhh these 2 apps make more than anywhere else. So therefore all developers make more. Aren't you getting tired or sounding like an idiot?

Heres a good katiepea argument that she won't even know whats wrong with because it follows her absurd statistics.

"More surprisingly, the BlackBerry App World had revenue of $165 million, and the Nokia Ovi store saw revenue of $105 million, both larger than Android despite a much smaller selection of available apps. "

- Independent research firm.

APP World makes more than MarketPlace therefore developers for blackberry make more.

talk about skewing numbers, app world revenue doesn't mean developers are making more, just charging more for them... in fact i think you'll find quite a library of articles written about how it's generally considered a waste of time to develop for blackberry due to the amount of money it costs just to develop for it, let alone offer an inferior app at a higher cost

LMAO, wow not only is what you said NOT the reason why that independent research firm is wrong in what they said. But instead you argued against yourself and in favor of BB developers making more money. If the apps cost more on BB and AppWorld makes more money than Android MarketPlace we have finally come to a mutual agreement that:

I find it really interesting that you're currently playing the devils advocate. Okay so what are you trying to accomplish by spouting information that is well know around here and talking about how the site is gonna be shut down. Unless you know something that we don't, it just proves that you know how to Google facts and that you are very legible at arguing. So unless you have any riveting information as to how it benefits people to have 100k of the same app iOS/Android and soon to be WP7 then your argument is stale and lacks insight. Yes RIM has been struggling, we know that. Yes BlackBerry has fewer apps than its mobile counterparts, we know that. Yes there's like 10 iOS/Android trolls to every 1 BlackBerry user, we know that too. Please tell us something we don't know, cos this current wave of RIM haters only proves one thing, that those responsible for the smear campaigns are either afraid of the future or they can't market their goods without bashing on someone else. That being said, quit your trolling cos your kind are laughable at best.

LMAO!!! People that like to form arguments on the basis of "if it says it on Google then it must be true" are a joke. Those same people are a perfect definition of broken telephone. They will read washed up and biased info, wash it up further by trying to understand or interpret it, and then have the audacity to pretend they're smart by regurgitating it. We're on to you @katiepae and everyone of your kind because you're not the first troll to ever hit CrackBerry, and you'll certainly not be the last.

That's a good point, but in the case of this pitch it doesn't matter. The point is that it's much easier to build an iPhone app or an Android app than a BlackBerry one. If I am a company with limited resources I have to choose what platform to develop for. RIM could do some things to make apps easier for developers to build so that when a company rolls out a new app it hits iOS, Android, AND BlackBerry.

I am one for Research In Motion and BlackBerry, but a valid point was made. Some developers of applications I see across the internet state that they will not be producing their applications for any other platform apart from iOS and Android as it would cost too much, take a long time and profits aren't sufficient. One such example is FlightRadar24.

Profits are good for BlackBerry if you know who your market is. The same things that make money on iOS or Android will not be the same as for RIM. Which is probably the reason FlightRadar (I assume a game?) may feel that way.

The profits are good for BlackBerry and are statistically growing (if I'm not mistaken lol) and that's a true point you made, thinking about how many people that may buy the application if ported to BlackBerry. FlightRadar24 is a volountary project which has gained top marks out of all the other sites which displays almost all civil aircraft in the air and rely on donations. In a post I wrote below, even though I would love this sort of application to be brought out onto BlackBerry (such as PlaneFinder on iOS and Android), I'll still pick BlackBerry over iPhone and Android devices; suits me better all round!

That's just not true Mike. As someone this is and has been involved in development for all 3 platforms, BlackBerry is by far the easiest to develop for. And here are reasons:

iOS apis while easy to use are lacking in functionality. BB and Android allow developers greater control and greater integration into the OS. iOS is also very far behind with respect to background processes, ie. Servers that you would need to create an app like JeeoSuite.

Android is probably the most difficult from the ground up. There is a whole lot of confusing databases that built the foundation of Android. There are alot of different form factors that need to be taken into consideration, and not all companies (HTC, Samsung etc.) have the same functionality in the phones.

BB is harder to setup the actual tools I've found but once thats done it's easier to code than Android and provides better integration and power than iOS.

you can check my creds under mblware if you like. I also spent half a year working on a Sonos project for iOS as well as a couple personal projects.

No reply to this Mike? Is it because it does not fit the conventional wisdom that BB is hard to develop for?

And certainly RIM has been done tons of work with tools and other things over the last 6 months or so and continue to do so - just updated their push service SDK (industry best - the other platform don't hold a candle to blackberry's push services and what it can do for consumers - read ekke's blog post) and the WEB works SDK.

Bottom line, if making money is the only criteria than doom and gloom sells and hence media is dis-proportionately full of those kind of stories versus the good stories and have even fewer that productively help a company. You appear to fall in this camp. If, as you profess, you wanted to truly have a constructive dialogue than you would have done your research (other than a total app count and jumping to conclusions about what is easy to develop for and what is not)found companies that actually develop for BB and those that don't and try to get at the bottom of the issue than take that to RIM and get them to comment on what they are doing to catch up - now i would believe your motives were pure but as it stands now, it is just not the title which inflammatory but also the content of the email that belies your protestations.

There are two approaches - make money who cares who gets hurt OR make money while constructively contributing to the human race. Reading all 3 replies lead me to believe that you are the former.

I must, however, congratulate you on your effort at the PR move.

Personally, there are only about a total of 4 to 5 apps that are currently not available that I would like.

(1) Kindle for playbook (not that big a deal because i have just converted all the kindle books to epub and use the epub app)

(2) Skype

(3) app for my banking needs (unfortunately my bank does not have an app for any platforms - they have web launchers - yuk)

(4) app for my brokerage activities so i can do everything from my BB phone and playbook. Again here they don't have an app for ANY platform.

The fact of the matter is if BlackBerry were cheap, easy, or lucrative to develop for, people would be doing it and there would be a lot more apps. No its not all about numbers but bbos has been around a lot longer than android and ios, there's no excuse

Here we go with katiepeas so called "Facts" again. Didn't you read what the developer wrote 2 posts up? Isn't that enough proof for you that BB is both easy and lucrative? Either way it doesn't matter because simple induction could be used to prove your argument false using only the above developers opinion. Yet again katiepea is completely WRONG!

Right there you are making an assumption with no way to validate it. BB invented the smartphone category - aimed ti primarily as a business tool. What ever the business needs were met by either the OS functionality or minimal apps. BB did not look at or pursue the consumer market as much. Apple is a consumer company first and foremost! Other than publishing companies not many other companies employ mac books (in effect none that i have come across). they then developed ipods - the touch version had apps! their business strategy was to entertain. So when the iphone came along it was easy enough to port those apps and apple did a fantastic job of marketing and getting more apps.

BB woke up to the consumer revolution late and even at that halfheartedly. Now that they have finally woken up to that fact and have started to aggressively pursue that market (their recent past acquisition are a proof of this) they will catch up as they make more tools available and make it easier and easier to develop. Apps will come and they do not need to have gazillion apps either they need enough high quality apps to make this tiring argument go away.

So harping about low apps when they have been around longer is nonsense without looking at the history.

For us BB users the phones do 98% of what we want and does it beautifully (and in our opinion better than other platforms - and in this case it is our opinion only that counts!) and are quiet content to wait for other 2% to catch up.

"Just know that no one was trying to pile onto RIM's recent misfortunes. Rather we were trying to point out one of the reasons they are struggling and what they might do about that."

Maybe I'm missing something. But doesn't the subject line of the letter read "STORY IDEA: The Death of Blackberry". As in Robert Chilver was attempting (at the direction of Walker Sands and probably paid to do so by a client) to "pitch" a story to the media about "The Death Of Blackberry".

Not sure how they say this in Chicago but here in Texas your response was the equivalent of "pissing on us without even a courtesy of calling it rain".

It's a good point that I addressed above. We use provocative subject lines to get editors to look at our pitch. In this case it went too far and was inappropriate. And it was compounded by the fact of what happened on the 20th. We'll take the blame for going too far with the subject line, but no one over here is rooting for BlackBerry to fail.

The BS is piling up in here. I call total BS on this piece of shite post, This mofo is just the dick that got caught with it in his hands. Spam the hell out of both of them. Just Start looking into whats happened to RIM over the last while, i'm sure theres more to come. This crap has been going on for years. It took us to the brink to figure it out.

Excuse me Mike......"An unfortunate day for BlackBerry" just so you'll know "BlackBerry" is a smartphone "RIM" is a company. I'm amazed you even know a software developer, they are intelligent people who write software code for computing devices. This is another example of the unintelligent minds that make up today's media........unbelievable incompetence, it's no wonder Kevin shut you down and THE RIMPIRE is now shutting you up. You should be fired as fast as shit# goes through a goose.

I'd like to know the percentage of useful...I mean REALLY USEFUL apps Andriod and Apple have. My daughter and wife both have Ipod touches and there seems to be a huge waste of launchers and gadget apps that have zero use or meaningful application. BTW atleast Mr. Santoro became a Crackberry member to defend his associate and was able to post...."Is the an app for that" or is that dude just plain stupid. I'm just sayin. The Rimpire Strikes Back!!!!

variety and choice are the spice of life, nothing wrong with options, what useful apps are on a blackberry that don't exist on the other platforms, more importantly, if offered on all, how are they better on BB than others? i'd be willing to bet if you take your favorite app from app world there's dozens of better iterations of it on other platforms.

Uhh, androids calendar offers for free what bes charges for. Its a sync between the phone and Google, same across all models, os versions. Real time sync both ways no matter what phone you use, and you can take screenshots without root, and even if you do root, that can be undone and doesn't void your warranty. You must be thinking about the bootloader

Uhh which calendar are u refering to? HTC, Samsung, Sony? What 3rd party apps reliably integrate with all these calendars? NONE. Wanna know why? cause they're all different. Android doesn't have Calendar API's for people to use. BUT NICE TRY!

Heres a recent forum post from a popular Android site where there users provide 1 way to take screenshots on an unrooted device. But this method WILL NOT! work for all Android devices.

So yet again you are misinformed...but I knew that before you even replied. And no I'm not thinking of the bootloader. And any feature that needs to have a device "rooted" is a failure because you're compromising the device.

Finally, I'm 100% sure that you don't know the End User Agreements for all the manufacturers that make Android devices. So you have no clue if it voids a warranty, so shutup already. Don't you get tired of being wrong all the time?

htc calendar app, samsung, lg, motorola, they all sync to your GOOGLE CALENDAR this isn't hard to realize, you're completely wrong on this account. android syncs calendar across all devices, i've owned 8 different android phones, this isn't even debatable, there isn't proprietary calendar syncing going on. no matter what android phone you have it syncs to your google account in the same manner contacts do. even at that, 3rd party developers have full access to the calendar api, i don't know where you're getting your information from, but 100% wrong from you today.

WOW, I should have read that whole article, then I could have really bombed you in the first reply. But i'll just make a second.

So the only way to get SOME! devices to screen shot without rooting is to install Androids development environment on your computer. Plug your phone into the computer, navigate to a DOS application and use it to capture a screenshot.

Read the comments yourself idiot users still can't get it to work and say it's overly complicated. Give your head a shake already.

You do know that better is a matter of opinion? The number of apps is great when you want to throw out stats but out of those apps, how many have people downloaded and actually kept using?

A BlackBerry was initially a business phone and it has not ventured very far from its roots. Yes, some of us may want a better multimedia experience on our phones. Yes, some of us may want more of the popular games. But most of us bought a BlackBerry for a very good reason, at the time it did what we needed it to do.

This is not religion, this is technology. Some of us want phones that work best for us while some of us want the next best thing. At the end of the day, if you are happy with your phone, I see no reason why you must go out of your way to slam someone's choice. It almost seems as if you are trying to convince yourself that you made the right decision.

If you want to join the CrackBerry world, I am sure that you will be welcome. But seriously, check the attitude at the door.

I'm not sure if I'm more surprised by the picture, or Kevin's use of the phrase, "haters gonna hate!" Either way, pure foolishness on the part of this Chilver fellow, his email inbox definitely needs a prayer right now... The CrackBerry Nation is a force to be reckoned with!

True. The number of applications that an OS can support hardly has anything to do with which ones will be used, on a grand scale. Take my 9700 for example. I have a total of 13 third-party applications and I use all of them mostly for the necessities of like i.e. TrainTimes, GPS Logger II, Opera Mini 6 etc.

Though, sometimes the quantity of applications can offer an up-side. There is one such application I crave for on BlackBerry called PlaneFinder which shows the location of most civil airliners in the air and on the ground. While this isn't necessary for my days at the office, it would save my a** getting kicked by ICT for searching FlightRadar24 instead of working… and I work pretty damn hard.

Not that I will jump ship because of a stupid application, I prefer to have a BlackBerry product. Colleagues and I would often use BBM across the office just to 'talk' and even plan pranks on others for a laugh without using any texts from our monthly tariff. BlackBerry devices will almost always be the best way to communicate with employers and employees.

I love to see everybody pumped up!!! Getting gangasta...!!! RIMM needs to come out swinging... I think we have been swinging more than RIM. I have been responding to negative articles about RIM on the WSJ, New York Times, etc... I have been edited on WSJ, even though I was professional - I meet their guidelines. :)

RIMM needs to talk about what their phones can do that the competitors cannot do while they are working on their new line of phones. In addition, they need to talk about how their phones are still competitive in a competitive market, and how the new phones will be even more competitive. RIMM should not standby idly and allow the competitors annihilate their name and reputation. It is hard to repair a bad reputation. Sometimes you cannot repair a bad reputation because it has been destroyed beyond repair. RIMM should have someone in the forefront of the media who can stand his/her ground with the media. RIMM needs a pit-bull that can go toe-to-toe with the media. They do not need someone who will walkout on an interview when the discussion gets too heated. The CEOs are not pit-bulls. They seem to be backend people - technology geeks. They have the Steve Jobs' smarts, but lack the marketing capabilities and skills...

I believe RIMM can turn things around. They have the technology, intelligence, and finance to turn things around. RIMM is financially strong and healthy.

Thanks Kevin for getting people fired up around here.... I enjoy this website, and I enjoy reading the articles and posts. I have learned a lot from reading the articles and posts. Some of the posts are very funny....

RIMM, I love my Playbook, but I would love to see Android and more "major" apps on it soon. In addition, please release an update with the native email, calendar, etc...to shut the critics up about the Playbook, which will generate more sales. The critics are starting sound like a broken record, which is getting old.

Note: I do not want to go back to an iPhone.... I get nightmares from thinking about going back to an iPhone. We all will have iPhones if we let the analysts have their way... pure communism.

Ouch! I feel for the guy that wrote this pitch lol. I'm not only a die hard BB owner, but I'm also a publicist. This pitch is all about promoting their client and less about Blackberry.

As publicists, we are always using current news stories that our clients can comment or speak on. It may be absurd or something we totally disagree with, but our ultimate goal is to get that client press.

As a publicist, I think it was a good pitch. It's a timely news topic.

His mistake: blindly pitching to a general "technology" beat. You can tell he didn't review his list, as he addressed him simply as editor--not by his name. Crackberry is not an appropriate media outlet for this pitch.

Good to see that the CrackBerry team refuse to bow to these kind of people. I can't be doing iwth people creating dishonest, unintersting copy for the sake of it, and to give their lame ass companies exposure.

I'm from the UK and if you come over here you would think RIM and their smartphones are a complete success, that's because they are. Everywhere I go 3/4 of the time I see a person using a BB and the other 1/4 with an Android or iPhone. The young generation here including myself are nuts about BB's simply because of BBM and yes we know about iMessage or whatever its called and personally most of us aren't appealed to it like we are with BBM. I agree BB's lack the amount of apps compared to iPhone/Android but who cares? I've got all the apps I need on my phone which are practical and related to what I do. Let's be honest half the apps you get for the other two platforms are completely useless and with no practical use whatsoever just simply there for entertainment and they'll eventually get deleted once the user gets bored with them. I don't know about you guys but security is a big thing for me so if people want to sacrifice security over some fancy phone and tons of apps that's their choice but for me I don't want people snooping around my emails and all sorts. My 9700 is my first BB and smartphone and I have to say its the best phone I've ever had especially now that its got OS6 on it..and I tell ya when the new bold touch comes out everyones gonna go nuts for it because people here are already hyped about it even though its taking ages to come out. So f*ck all the RIM haters...BB for life!

have any of you visited seekingalpha.com? there is one particular blogger named Rocco whose sole mission in life appears to drum the beat of RIM's death. Wouldn't mind seeing some of this passion directed over there.

Yes, THE RIMPIRE needs to shut down Rocco and all of the other big media outlets, WSJ, CNBC, Marketwatch, AllThingsdigital. THE RIMPIRE needs to put some hurt on all of them. There's big money behind all this RIM bashing you can bet the Farm on that. Hmmmmm.... I wonder what huge competitive Smartphone Company would have enough cash to mount an enormous smear campaign like this? Oh and don't forget about those Wall Street criminals who bankrupted the US with the crooked mortgage derivative scam.....THE RIMPIRE STRIKES BACK!!!

Thanks for the e-mail. I just wanted to clear things up by saying that
neither I, nor my client, think that the BlackBerry is dead. The e-mail
posted on crackberry was to pitch a story about how BlackBerry's development
platform is currently tougher to develop applications for and what steps
might help them improve in that area. The pitch was meant to discuss RIM's
weaknesses in the AppWorld development environment and only that. Our client
has had quite a few clients skip developing an app for BlackBerry because
the effort to do so is too much.

These guys spend all day in the AppWorld development environment so they
aren't rooting for BlackBerry's demise. Instead they have a lot of
information they could share about what RIM could do to improve their
development environment to get BlackBerry users the good quality apps they
need.

I agree that the subject line went too far, but realize that no one over
here is celebrating RIM's recent struggles. On the contrary we wanted to
offer a source to discuss some ways RIM could continue to compete with the
other platforms.
Poor timing and poor execution on my part, but know that we never intended
to pile onto RIM's recent troubles.

Thanks for the e-mail. I just wanted to clear things up by saying that
neither I, nor my client, think that the BlackBerry is dead. The e-mail
posted on crackberry was to pitch a story about how BlackBerry's development
platform is currently tougher to develop applications for and what steps
might help them improve in that area. The pitch was meant to discuss RIM's
weaknesses in the AppWorld development environment and only that. Our client
has had quite a few clients skip developing an app for BlackBerry because
the effort to do so is too much.

These guys spend all day in the AppWorld development environment so they
aren't rooting for BlackBerry's demise. Instead they have a lot of
information they could share about what RIM could do to improve their
development environment to get BlackBerry users the good quality apps they
need.

I agree that the subject line went too far, but realize that no one over
here is celebrating RIM's recent struggles. On the contrary we wanted to
offer a source to discuss some ways RIM could continue to compete with the
other platforms.
Poor timing and poor execution on my part, but know that we never intended
to pile onto RIM's recent troubles.

The way I see it is the PR firm got caught red handed and now they are trying to backtrack and do damage control(the job normally reserved for clients) They can spew all they "looking back" garbage they want. The intentions were pretty clear.

Really? The reaction in these comments seems to be a bit ridiculous to me. Was the email in Kevin's article a purposeful hit job by a P.R. firm? Maybe. But for people here to be THIS worried about it just because Kevin tells you to (basically inciting spam and the milder forms of cyber-terrorism)...yuck, that doesn't leave me with a good feeling.

You can say what you want, but the negative press and "hit jobs" wouldn't bother anyone if people didn't have an inferiority complex about them being true. I fail to see one "false" assertion made in that email. BlackBerry IS lagging behind the competition in U.S. sales, developers DO have great difficulty developing apps for BB devices (hello? Angry Birds?!), and they ARE losing market share with younger, knowledgeable smartphone users. Shouldn't the BLACKBERRY users be the ones who are most upset about that?

I've been a happy BlackBerry user (9700) for over a year-and-a-half now. I don't regret that purchase, but there's also virtually no chance that I'm going BlackBerry again until they show me a device that offers more than the iPhone 3GS for cryin' out loud! People on here are arguing about screenshots as if THAT'S the reason people buy phones - give me a break! Obviously people DO care about Angry Birds, better cameras, FaceTime, slicker operating systems, larger/higher-resolution screens, and better web browsing, or they wouldn't keep BUYING these other phones!

I wonder how long this has been going on? Also I wonder how many of the Sh*t talking bloggers own stock in Apple or Google? You can be guaranteed they carry the same type of phone and are oblivious to various "hidden" BlackBerry features like security and compressed data services.

It has become obvious to me that the entire handheld market is managed. In the US there are 4 carriers selling maybe 95 percent of all phones. Eighteen months ago Verizon and every one says how bad Windows Mobil is and they stop selling Windows phones. Now Windows 7 is all that? All of a sudden Android is the best thing in the world. Nonsense. Even though I don't like Microsoft my Windows phone was pretty good (palm 700wx). These reviewers are a joke claiming one phone is that much better than the other, and how things are out dated and such. Nokia and simbian are junk? Then Microsoft is going to buy them. PUMP and DUMP then BUY CHEAP
It is nice to see some of it being exposed. As an aside I really do like my new 9780. The push system works like magic. The only complaint I have is the speed of the network. I don't know where the bottle neck is (NOC, BES, encryption), but it good if they could speed things up without compromising the system.

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